Thursday, December 23, 2010

Cross Country Elbow Dislocating

My wife and I just recently enjoyed a cross country skiing excursion at our cottage just outside the hamlet of Minikin, Ontario. Much snow had fallen, and an enchanting wintry landscape gave us the promise of unsurpassed skiing ecstasy.

However, some dimwit had plowed the roads, and done a good job of it too. This is cottage country after all, and the roads are traditionally covered with enough snow to suffice for this particular sport. But gravelly patches and ice greeted us here and there.

On one particularly steep downhill lane, my wife saw what she thought was a nice powdery slope. Intrepid and eager, she swooshed off downhill. To her surprise and dismay, she found out about midway that the road was covered with a particularly nasty and unfriendly coating of ice. Standing and looking at her from the top of this small mountain, I saw this blur on skis quickly disappearing and shouting, “ %$#^*! It’s ice! AAAUUUGGGG!!!!” She fell with a barely audible “whump”. She lay there motionless in the snow in her green coat, looking like an abandoned evergreen that had fallen from the roof rack of a car on its way to become the Christmas centerpiece of someone’s home.

It took me a while to comprehend what had happened. At first I almost yelled out, “C’mon move! I wanna try it!” But after about three minutes, I realized that something might be terribly wrong. So I took off my skis and navigated my way down to my snow-crusted heap of a spouse.

It should be noted that I am known as a very perceptive man — a man of acumen, intuition, and insight. This was demonstrated now, as I looked down at the crumpled mass of humanity and asked, “Are you OK?”
“Nnnaarggh”, she articulated. “I think I broke something.”
Fearing the worst, I checked her skis but found to my delight that they were as good as new.
“I think I broke my arm or elbow", she elaborated. Luckily, I had remained silent about my concern over the skis.

With some cautious effort, I was able to take off her skis, stand her up, and escort her back to our cottage. It was a 20 minute drive to the nearest hospital. My wife howled and shrieked with pain for the entire journey. I considered rolling down her window to utilize her wailing as a siren. When we got to the emergency department, I immediately went to reception and had them admit me to check for ear damage. Once it was determined that I was OK, they had a look at my wife. The doctor took x-rays and discovered that she had a dislocated elbow.

The procedure then began to put my better half back together again. She was sedated first with morphine, and an anti-nauseant. Then they administered something from a syringe that almost put her completely into La La Land. I was asked if I wanted to stay and watch them contort my wife's arm back in place. "It would be my pleasure", I replied.

Although my wife was quite dazed and dopey, she managed to moan out, "AAAARRRRrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnhh......zzzzzzzzzz....." Her head then lolled to one side as the cast was applied to her arm. Thankfully, she remembers nothing of the procedure.

The cast is now off, but my wife's arm is equipped with a bionic-like contraption that makes her look rather menacing. So, I've decided not to complain about helping her out and doing all the household chores.